Episode 4 of Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters focused solely on the 2015 team of protagonists, while using flashbacks to start exploring the relationship between May and Kentaro.
The episode starts in Utah, with a woman sunbathing when she is alerted by a strange beeping coming from her trailer. She rushes in and starts checking all her monitoring equipment before narrowing it down to a piece of old tech, at which point she calls Monarch. We later find out she is Dr. Barnes, a Monarch researcher.
We then cut to our poor protagonists, now trapped in Alaska thanks to the wolf Titan. Kentaro tries to fire a flare at it and misses but he did manage to briefly distract it, allowing everyone a headstart on fleeing from the Titan. They manage to find shelter in a small cave but May, unfortunately, falls through some ice into cold water. We then flashback to Kentaro preparing for an art presentation a year earlier. When asked by his manager to describe his art, he didn’t have an answer so steps out of the studio to think, where he bumps into May.
Back in the present, Kentaro tries to tell the others about a ‘golf ball’ building he saw when they were in the plane.The group try to find it for a while but, after an initial failure, the others aren’t willing to risk it any longer due to May’s current condition. Kentato splits from the others in search of what he saw while Lee, Cate, and May head towards a mysterious light. Flashing back to 2014 again, May is reluctant to talk about herself, saying she works with computers. She is surprised to learn that the presentation was Kentaro’s first job as an artist but he had decided to be with her instead of being at the art gallery.
Going back to the present again, Barnes is talking to Monarch’s Director and explaining that the data she got is showing spikes normally only found in pulsars from supermassive black holes. While she’d detecting it in Alaska, that’s not the surprising part; the last time these readings showed up was right before G-Day.
While Kentaro is walking alone in a blizzard, Cate regrets having let him head off alone as May starts getting delirious and talking nonsense. Cate quickly tries to help her and it does appear to work. Kentaro loses his strength and falls into the snow, as the others manage to circle all the way back to Hiroshi’s tent. Lee explains that Titans can have weird effects on their environments in unpredictable ways, so the light they saw could’ve been a result of that. Kentaro starts hallucinating that he’s with May and we return to 2014 again where Kentaro finally goes to the art presentation. May receives a phone call from someone named Lyra, who she tells not to call her again until she returns to the states.
We soon find out that Lyra is May’s sister as she tells Cate to call Lyra if May doesn’t survive. Lee builds a fire and fuels it with Hiroshi’s papers to make it stronger. However, this draws back the Titan and it starts drawing in the heat of the fire. The Titan then freezes everything in the tent, tipping off Lee on how to possibly defeat it, using the airplane’s fuel bladder. Kentaro’s hallucinations get worst and he sees his father at the art presentation. The two talk, which gives Kentaro the strength he needs to keep going, where he finds the building he saw. He starts losing hope when he sees the building is abandoned but does find a mysteriously repaired radio, which he uses to call for help.
Lee is almost done with his preparations to fight off the Titan but it attacks before he can finish and goes after May, who uses her laptop bag to defend herself. Lee manages to set fire to the fuel, drawing the Titan’s attention as a helicopter arrives with an alive Kentaro aboard. May also thanks Cate for helping her, bringing the girls closer together. Lee discovers that the Titan has, unfortunately, destroyed the laptop that contained all of Hiroshi’s files. That’s not the worst thing to happen, though. As they land, they are greeted by Tim from Monarch.
In my opinion, this episode wasn’s quite as good as last week’s, and the lack of any 1950s story may be the cause. While it was nice to see the starts of Kentaro and May’s story, it felt a little forced into the episode. Seeing the group problem solving and managing to survive in a blizzard was good, and the way Lee found a way to distract the Titan long enough for everyone to escape was also nice. I am curious to see what will happen in episode 5 now that Tim has finally caught up to the 2015 group, and Lee in particular. Do Monarch know about the Titan in Alaska, and more importantly, do they know what’s happened to Hiroshi?
What did you think of episode 4? Are you excited for episode 5? Let us know in the comments below!
